Opinion of the Court
jurisdiction. Rather, the cases he cites mostly involve commitments by justices of the peace,[1] a distinction reflected in Watkins itself. See id., at 208 (discussing Ex parte Burford, 3 Cranch 448, 453 (1806), where the Court examined on habeas the sufficiency of a warrant of commitment by justices of the peace while noting that no judgment of a federal court was in question). At common law, justices of the peace were not courts of record and did not possess general criminal jurisdiction. Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1, 16–17 (1899); see also United States v. Mills, 11 App. D. C. 500, 507 (1897). As such, their commitments were “not placed on the same high ground with the judgments of a court of record,” and the fact that superior courts sometimes used habeas to examine commitments by such inferior magistrates furnishes “no authority for inquiring into the judgments of a court of general criminal jurisdiction.” Watkins, 3 Pet., at 209.
Jones also appeals to Bushell’s Case, Vaugh. 135, 124 Eng. Rep. 1006 (C. P. 1670), which has long been understood as a case about the independence of criminal juries in determining questions of fact. Clark v. United States, 289 U. S. 1, 16–17 (1933); see also Sparf v. United States, 156 U. S. 51, 90–93 (1895); 1 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 375 (1883) (Stephen). There, a judge fined and imprisoned the members of a jury for acquitting William Penn and William Mead on indictments for “assembling unlawfully and tumultuously,” a verdict ostensibly against the “manifest evidence.” Vaugh., at 137, 124 Eng. Rep., at 1007. A juror refused to pay the fine, applied to the
- ↑ See Rex v. Brown, 8 T. R. 26, 101 Eng. Rep. 1247 (1798); Rex v. Hall, 1 Cowp. 60, 98 Eng. Rep. 967 (1774); Rex v. Hall, 3 Burr. 1636, 97 Eng. Rep. 1022 (1765); Rex v. Collier, 1 Wils. K. B. 332, 95 Eng. Rep. 647 (1752). The cursory report in Rex v. Catherall, 2 Str. 900, 93 Eng. Rep. 967 (1730), is silent as to the authority under which the petitioner was convicted, and so cannot help Jones overcome Watkins.
